ns in the same house. I returned gaily to my room and found
my sweetheart in bed without her chemise. I went to the place beside the
bed where she had thrown it down, and as soon as she saw me touching it
she begged me in a fright not to do so, as it was not clean. She was
right, for it bore numerous marks of the disease which infected her. It
may be imagined that my passion cooled, and that I sent her away in a
moment; but I felt at the same time the greatest gratitude to what is
called chance, for I should have never thought of examining a girl whose
face was all lilies and roses, and who could not be more than eighteen.

Next day I went to Roche to see the celebrated Haller.

CHAPTER XVIII

M. Haller--My Stay at Lausanne--Lord Rosebury--The Young
Saconai--Dissertation on Beauty--The Young Theologian

M. Haller was a man six feet high and broad in a proportion; he was a
well-made man, and a physical as well as a mental colossus. He received
me courteously, and when he had read M. de Muralt's letter, he displayed
the greatest politeness, which shews that a good letter of introduction
is never out of place. This learned man displayed to me all the treasures
of his knowledge, replying with exactitude to all my questions, and above
all with a rare modesty which astonished me greatly, for whilst he
explained the most difficult questions, he had the air of a scholar who
would fain know; but on the other hand, when he asked me a scientific
question, it was with so delicate an art that I could not help giving the
right answer.

M. de Haller was a great physiologist, a great doctor, and a great
anatomist. He called Morgagni his master, though he had himself made
numerous discoveries relating to the frame of man. While I stayed with
him he shewed me a number of letters from Morgagni and Pontedera, a
professor of botany, a science of which Haller had an extensive
knowledge. Hearing me speak of these learned men whose works I had read
at an early age, he complained that Pontedera's letters were almost
illegible and written in extremely obscure Latin. He shewed me a letter
from a Berlin Academician, whose name I have forgotten, who said that
since the king had read his letter he had no more thoughts of suppressing
the Latin language. Haller had written to Frederick the Great that a
monarch who succeeded in the unhappy enterprise of proscribing the
language of Cicero and Virgil from the republic of letters would